Key points
- The Ukrainian‑French team presented the VR film DAMNED about the consequences of the Kakhovka HPP blow‑up at the Venice Gap‑Financing Market – the professional platform of the Venice Film Festival.
- The film is created by director Nataliya Velikanova and producer Valeriy Korshunov in collaboration with the French company Da Prod, with support from the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation and the French National Center for Cinema and Animation.
- DAMNED shows the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine through the experience of animals and nature, whose losses are practically impossible to count.
- The story centers on the golden retriever Mira, who, together with other wild and domestic animals, seeks rescue after the dam’s destruction.
The Ukrainian‑French team presented the VR film DAMNED about the environmental consequences of the Kakhovka HPP blow‑up at the Venice Gap‑Financing Market – the professional platform of the Venice International Film Festival.
The film is being worked on by Ukrainian director Nataliya Velikanova and Ukrainian producer Valeriy Korshunov, who in 2023 already presented the VR project First Day / “Doba Persha” in Venice. The film is created in collaboration with the Ukrainian team and the French production company Da Prod, with support from the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation and the French National Center for Cinema and Animation – CNC.
DAMNED tells the story of Russia’s war against Ukraine through the experience of those whose losses are almost impossible to count and record – animals and nature itself. The story centers on the golden retriever Mira, who, together with other wild and domestic animals, seeks rescue in a world where safe places no longer exist.
They have no voice, so their story must be heard, and their silence must become testimony.
– author and director of DAMNED Nataliya Velikanova.
Producer Valeriy Korshunov explains that one of the film’s main tasks is to find a new language for speaking with an international audience at a time when news from Ukraine is increasingly perceived as a backdrop. According to him, DAMNED aims to show the scale of the destruction of the living world that touches the shared European ecosystem.
The Venice event continues the story started by Valeriy Korshunov: in 2023 his project First Day transported the viewer to the first day of the full‑scale invasion on 24 February 2022 and was built on real stories of Ukrainians and digital recordings of destroyed houses in Borodyanka and Bucha.
According to UN data, the blow‑up of the Kakhovka HPP on 6 June 2023 flooded about 620 square kilometres of territory, and more than 100,000 people were affected. Total losses and damages were estimated at almost 14 billion dollars.
Before its screening in Venice, DAMNED went through selection at the European Creators’ Lab, Stereopsia in Brussels, and MIFA Pitches in Annecy, where it received the Weird Market Prize, as well as the Biennale College Cinema – Immersive program.
This year, 65 projects were selected for the Venice Immersive program from over 370 submissions worldwide.
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